Andreja Pejić: "Sometimes I Get Tired Of Answering Questions About My Vagina"

Andreja Pejić is a babe with a brain and a lot to say. Image: GettySource:Whimn

Andreja Pejić has all sorts of feathers in her cap as a model, but it's her frank and insightful comments on life as a transgender woman in a recent interview for Refinery29 that have us falling in love all over again.

Pejić's rise to fame is nothing short of a modern-day fairy tale. Coming to Australia with her family from Boznia and Herzegovina as a political refugee at the age of ten, she was 'discovered' as a sixteen-year-old working in a Melbourne McDonald's. Andreja - Andrej at the time - hit the headlines almost straight away, quickly becoming the world's most famous androgynous model. Andrej Pejić walked male and female catwalks alike, and those headlines kept coming thick and fast - some of which, Andreja told Refinery29, were more exploitative than adoring.

"I hated seeing article titles saying ‘Male Model,’ or ones that would sensationalise it by putting up a pretty picture of me and being like, ‘This Is A Man!’” she explains.

When asked whether she ever resents her transition being such a big part of interviews, she responds bluntly: "Sometimes, yes, I get tired of answering questions about my vagina. Does my story give more of a dimension to my career and make me more memorable? I think so, but I have to relive some really personal things."

Flash forward to 2017, and Andreja is still killing it as a model. These days, though, she is doing it while living in a female body, having undergone gender-affirming surgery in 2013.

Andreja's recent sit-down with the US women's site produced some truly thought-provoking insights from the 25-year-old, proving that has her career has blossomed, so too has her understanding that being a public transgender figure brings with it a certain weight of expectation - fair or unfair - to speak on behalf of many.

Here are some of her most interesting insights from the interview:

On growing up transgender in Australia ...

Pejić revealed that while her mother often asked if she was gay, it was the discovery of a stash of hormone pills in her desk when she was 14 that alerted her to what was really going on.

"I wouldn't recommend it," she said, in reference to having secretly procured the drugs online, "but in Australia, there’s still that strange law that to be treated if you’re under 18, you have to go through the family court and get it approved by a judge, which takes years and is so expensive. I took things into my own hands. It’s worse if you're doing it like a lot of young people do, who can’t afford to see a doctor and are injecting on the street."

On inter-sectional feminism

Asked by journalist Alix Tunell whether she identified as a feminist, Pejić's response was complex.

“Of course, I believe in equality of women, no question. Do I think that a matriarchy is the answer to all of our problems? No. My problem with modern day feminism is that it concerns itself way too much with trivial things and it’s become quite bourgeois and concerned with the needs of upper middle class women as opposed to everyday, working people.”

While the model's definition of feminism will surely appear problematic to some (a 'Matriarchy' has never been the endgame, unless I'm reading the wrong feminist books), there is no question that her opinion on the need for more intersectionality in modern-day feminism (something many of us agree requires more work) is a considered one.

On the need for activism ...

Pejić's complicated relationship with the feminist label doesn't stop her from referencing the importance of political movements like those of the sixties.

“I believe in humanity and that we can build a better world, but it’s going to take more than just hashtags. It’s going to need to be the 1960s all over again; there need to be movements. When you’re fighting to survive and get by every day, taking a break from that to get political is taxing, but it’s necessary — there’s no way around it.”

On privilege ...

Privilege is another complicated word in Andreja Pejić's life - and she is clear when she points out that while her experience of acceptance as a thin, white woman in the mainstream media has been empowering, it is not the experience of many transgender people.

She references the stories she hears from young LGBTIQ fans when she admits there is still a long way to go.

“They look at the exposure we’ve had in the media and it’s bittersweet for them because they’re like, ‘Oh, now apparently trans people are accepted. But I can’t pay my rent or get a job,’” she says. “It very much helps if you’re a supermodel or related to the Kardashians or have a career in Hollywood. Getting a cover of a magazine is nice and I’m grateful for it, but it isn’t going to lift people out of poverty.”